Vita’s world

Aline writes: In early August we went to visit Sissinghurst Garden. It's only about one hour south of London, in Kent. It was created by Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, and many people (including me) consider it to be the finest garden in England. Vita is famous for more than her garden of course - her son wrote a fascinating book on his parent's marriage. But it is the garden I want to show you, and it is always known as "Vita's garden"


It is my favorite garden in England – I visited it several years ago, and this time I got to take Bill there. It was just as beautiful as I remembered.

The estate consists of various old buildings, such as the medieval house


The tower where Vita’s study has been maintained as she left it and is now on display for visitors



You can climb to the top of the tower to appreciate the garden’s structure. It is a magical melding of formal structure, dividing the garden into “rooms,” and English garden exuberance, with beautiful color-themed borders. Here you can see the structure of the rose garden





The colors are really wonderful. For example, one of the front borders has many blue and purple flowers



One garden has all warm-colored flowers



And, of course, there is the famous white garden, with virtually all white flowers. This garden is so fabulous, as the monochromatic color really emphasizes the contrast of foliage texture and color.



This is the lime tree walk



As you can see, there are beautiful vistas everywhere you look. It also has a small orchard, a moat – it’s absolutely perfect as far as I am concerned!

I wish you all could have been there – there is nothing like an English garden on a beautiful Summer’s day. You can see how happy I am to be there!